Export UE4 designs to Sketchup?

Hi there,

my name is and I am a designer of sustainable human habitation. I use a design framework called Permaculture, it aims to help people supply all their needs and be a a benefit to the environment at the same time. Think off-grid living with food security. Real life designs implemented around the house and landscape/garden.

I have been using sketchup until now to design most of my designs. It works great for making models, garden drawings and my kind of top down/overview kind of design. But recently I wanted to show something from a more up close angle and failed to do adequately for a client. So I decided to look for a way to import sketchup into a game so I could literally have my clients walk around in their design and get a feel for it. I ended up choosing UE4 because of the obvious graphics and compatibility with sketchup. From the videos I have seen so far I am also really impressed with the landscaping tools! I am even thinking to just import my models from sketchup and do all landscaping and treeplanting in UE4 from now on.

I have a couple of questions though, and I hope you can answer them. I assure you I have searched this forum and google for answers to these, but couldn’t find them.

  1. Is it possible to export the final result of the UE4 design to sketchup? I will need to present 2d maps for implementation and you need a parallel projection feature for that like in sketchup.

  2. I see the engine is able to import height or contour maps. Is it possible to export them after editing as well?
    One of the things I would be doing with UE4 is designing water catchment systems. So think ponds, swales, diversion drains, level overflows, etc. These need to be presented in a readible 2d fashion on a piece of paper me and the digger driver can point at :slight_smile: Any of the standard GIS file formats will do.

  3. How big is the learning curve on UE4? I have experience with similar game editors such as the skyrim and oblivion creation kit, NWN creation kit and photoshop (Tried my hand at Autocad but was dumbfounded). I pick things up pretty fast as long as I don’t involve myself with coding / scripting.

Cheers in advance! Really appreciate your time.

Regards,

Bump? Anyone got any ideas on this?